More than 12 years after the “fake” encounters of notorious criminals Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tusliram Prajapati and the rape-murder of Kausar Bi, a special CBI court will deliver its verdict in the combined politically significant case on Friday.
At the hearing held on December 7, Additional Sessions Judge SJ Sharma, who presides over a special CBI court, had fixed 21 December as the date of judgement.
Two days ahead of the crucial verdict, Azam Khan — a key witness and associate of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram — had filed a plea before the special CBI court saying that his testimony was “incomplete” and sought to be re-examined on the ground that he faced “unrelenting torture” for 20 days and was, hence, scared to name IPS officers and politicians during his deposition before the special CBI court last month.
During his deposition before the special CBI court, Khan had on November 3 that Sohrabuddin had told him that former Gujarat IPS officer D G Vanzara had given a contract to kill Haren Pandya, senior BJP leader and former Gujarat Home Minister in 2003.
Pandya, it may be recalled, was shot dead in Ahmedabad on March 26, 2003. While the trial court had held 12 accused guilty, the Gujarat High Court had acquitted all in 2011. The appeal filed against the acquittal by the Gujarat government and CBI is pending before the Supreme Court.
Special Judge Sharma is expected to hear Azam Khan’s plea on Friday morning before delivering the verdict in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tusliram Prajapati “fake” encounter case.
Sohrabuddin was allegedly killed in a fake encounter on 26 November, 2005, while Tulsiram too was eliminated in similar fashion on 28 December, 2006. And since Kausar Bi was witness to the abduction of Sohrabuddin and possibly Tulsiram, she was allegedly raped and murdered.
Both encounters of Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram were carried out by the ATS of the Gujarat police.
The alleged fake encounters of notorious gangsters Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram and disappearance of the former's wife Kausar Bi during 2005-06 had resulted in a major political fallout involving the BJP-ruled Gujarat.
The Prosecution’s case was that Sohrabuddin had connections with Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and was conspiring to assassinate an “important political leader”, presumably then chief minister and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Initially, there were in all 38 accused in the case. Of them, 16 has been discharged — 15 by the special CBI court and one by the Bombay High Court.
The accused discharged in the case include BJP’s current national President and then Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chandra Kataria and high-profile Deputy Inspector General DG Vanzara, who headed the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and known for several encounters, Superintendent of Police Dinesh MN and Superintendent of Police Rajkumar Pandian.
All the IPS officers, arrested for the twin encounters, have been discharged.
In all, 22 accused were tried during the trial. They included two Deputy Superintendents of Police, Senior Inspectors, Inspector, Sub-Inspectors, Assistant Sub-Inspectors, Head Constables and Constables of Gujarat and Rajasthan.
During the course of the trial, 210 witnesses were examined, of which 92 turned hostile.
When the court recorded their statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, all the accused had claimed innocence and said they were arrested because of the rivalry among top police officials and other factors stemming then prevailing political situation in Gujarat.
On the last day of final arguments in the case, CBI counsel B P Raju admitted that there had been "lacunae" in the central agency's investigation as they took over the case five years after the alleged incidents.
"The Sohrabuddin encounter took place in 2005, while the Tulsiram encounter happened in 2006. We came in picture in 2010," Raju told the court.
So much so that some key witnesses turned hostile during the trial, weakening the CBI's case.
On his part, the Judge observed: "I don't blame CID. I don't blame CBI. There are statements and witnesses. If they come here and say something else, it's not your fault. You did your job.....both sides did their job well....your work is over, my work starts now."
The CBI, however, maintained that they have enough material to prove that both the encounters were genuine. However, the defence counsels in the case stated that the Prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
During the last phase of the trial, a prosecution witness Azam Khan, who too is a criminal under custody, told the court that Sohrabuddin might have had a role in the murder of the then Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya, who he claimed had been killed on March 26, 2003, at the instance of Vanzara.
It may be recalled that Sohrabuddin, a “dreaded criminal”, and his wife Kausar Bi were killed in an alleged fake encounter in November 2004 by the Gujarat Police near Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The case assumed considerable public importance owing to the alleged involvement of some of the high-profile politicians and IPS officers in it.
An aide Tulsiram Prajapati, who was the prime witness to the killings, was arrested by the police but was later killed in an encounter in December 2006 after the law-enforcers claimed he tried to escape from custody.
Later, the police had named 33 persons as accused in the case. Shah, who was Gujarat home minister at the relevant time in 2005, the then home minister of Rajasthan and several Gujarat IPS officers, lower police officials from both states besides Andhra Pradesh, were among the accused.
Several police officers from Gujarat were among the 33 accused in the "fake" encounters of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, Kausar Bi in November 2005 and Prajapati in December 2006.
The alleged Sohrabuddin fake encounter case was transferred to Mumbai in September 2012 at CBI's request for fair trial. In 2013, the Supreme Court had clubbed Tulsiram Prajapati's encounter killing case with that of Sohrabuddin.
In December, 2014, Special CBI Judge MB Gosavi in Mumbai discharged Shah and 16 other co-accused, citing either lack of sanction for prosecution or insufficient evidence against them.